"Thank you for your help," John whispered, waiting for his regeneration to do its thing.
The girl's brilliant smile warmed John's heart. "I didn't even know I could do that, but I was so scared and I could feel this pressure building, and I thought I would wait until you were ready so we could beat her up together! Are you an adventurer? Lucile said they were just made up stories, but I thought it would be wonderful if heroes like you were real, and when I ask Mom, she says nothing, just smiles. But I know she's hiding things from me when she closes off her mind, and I was so afraid that thing was going to turn me to a monster like my friends."
She began to sob.
"It's going to be okay," John soothed. "We just need to rescue your friends and find someplace safe for you all to stay."
Beautiful blue eyes met his own. "Can't we just go home?"
John swallowed, looking away. "I'm afraid not, sweetheart. I think... I'm afraid some very bad monsters are heading there right now."
The little girl paled. "Then we have to go home. Go home and warn everyone!"
"I will," John assured. "Once I make sure you all are safe."
The girl's lips pressed tightly together. "But you're hurt. You got blood all over you, and you fell. And I can see big holes in your armor." John didn't deny it, though the little girl's eyes widened when he finally propped himself to his feet exactly one minute later. He winced with pain, wasting no more time, knowing the remaining damage would heal in seconds.
"What's your name, sweetheart?"
"Mary Aurelia Everwood," the girl said.
John smiled. "Thank you, Mary. How about we work on freeing your friends and getting out of here?"
Within a handful of minutes, John found himself suddenly responsible for several dozen children trembling with exhaustion, eyes wide with terror. The five children caught in the vat of slime John knew he had no ability to save but couldn't bring himself to kill. He chose to leave them for now, focusing only on getting the surviving children to safety, carefully leading them back the way he had come after his infravision made sure no foes were stalking them from the rear.
Blade held at the ready, John proceeded as cautiously as he dared back up the tunnel, far more worried about horrors slipping past him to butcher the children than he was for himself, the musty limestone tang in the air now rife with the scents of blood, bile, and a sickly black rot.
The chamber where the ambush had taken place was a scene of horror. Near a full score of butchered revenants and spiders lay in piles of sundered flesh, John hissing as they began to shrivel to desiccated skin and bone, as if waiting for his presence alone to decompose. For I am the counter to the plagues they bring.
John shuddered and looked away, both terrified of seeing the faces of those brave men and women who had fallen, yet needing to look nonetheless. There were no signs of any bodies, no trace of any survivors at all. Yet a tiny voice in the back of his mind held onto desperate hope. Was it at all possible that some might have survived? Being transformed even now? If he could somehow heal them...
The deathly silence was cut with a young girl's cry, and John knew he had to assure the children's safety before he did anything else, like risk getting killed in a desperate search for friends who were had already perished. Because if that happened, the children's chances of survival would be zero.
John turned to the lead girl gazing boldly back at him, carefully not looking at the powdery bones that had been corpses just minutes before. He flashed Mary a reassuring smile.
"How are you doing, kiddo?"
Haunted eyes met his own. "Is everyone dead?"
John’s gaze was sympathetic. "Honestly, I don't know. My plan is to get you guys someplace safe, then investigate the town and do whatever it is I have to do."
Her eyes filled with sudden hope. "Can you rescue them?"
"I’m sorry, sweetheart. I can’t promise I’ll be able to rescue anyone,” he said, his heart aching with her quiet sobs. “But I promise to try.”
"You'll save our town. I just know it!"
He couldn't help but smile and nod, seeing the desperate look in her eyes.
You have accepted the quest: Town Rescue I! You have promised the future Highlord Mage and heir to her town, Mary Everwood, that you will do all you can to purge Goldenwheat of the Plague Queen threat! Your oathbound resolve grants you +2 to all saves while carrying out this quest! Warning: breaking this oath could result in future karma penalties!
"Mary, is there someone you trust who can keep you safe who doesn't live in town?"
The girl nodded, golden locks bobbing as she did so. "Mother's grandfather. A lot of folk say he's a mage as well. He doesn't wear robes or have servants, though, and never challenged to join the coven that rules us. Even though he's always respectful, he bows his head to no man, not even to our masters. But they don't bother him, they just smile and nod whenever grandfather comes to town to buy supplies and ask him questions about the woods." She sighed sadly. "He's a lot like Aunt Agneta. I miss her."
John swallowed the lump in his throat as the young girl led the way through the bog once they left the cave, doing his best to make sure all the children stuck together, more than one child wrinkling their nose at the smells of rotting vegetation and less savory aromas. He eyed the landscape carefully for the glowing shapes of warm-blooded predators or the telltale movements of spiders or snakes hiding in the dangling swamp moss, and save for one serpent cleaved in twain before it could do more than rattle its tail, no predator barred their way.
Mary quickly led them to higher ground on sure feet as she blazed a trail only she could find. All the children smiled with relief when swampy smells were replaced by the fresh scents of wildflowers and the sharp piney scents of evergreens. Most of the children were harvesting the incredibly sweet chestnuts of this world whenever someone pointed out a choice tree, as well as other nut varieties John didn't recognize to fill their bellies later.
The mood quickly lightened as Mary sang a cheerful, hopeful song the other children quickly picked up. John was about to caution a quieter approach when the trees before them suddenly opened into a pristine woodland glade filled with blossoming wildflowers at the edge of a lake that shown with the flashing light of the setting sun, Phoebe shining brilliantly in her reflected waters.
John blinked, noting the massive stag suddenly before him, snorting softly, antlers lowered. He felt an odd tingle, sensing powerful magics radiating from the sentinel eyeing him so intently.
The enormous creature huffed, raising its head and stepping back, Mary and the children bursting into the clearing with jubilant cheers as a beaming man wearing buckskins and what seemed a bracer of horn-hilted blades approached, looking far older than the typical mid-twenties most folk John had met seemed to be, yet he radiated a fierce vitality nonetheless.
One look into those ice-blue eyes and John shivered, sensing a fearsome potency within this man. He radiated a green vitality that made John think of Agneta, a bittersweet pain that lanced his heart.
The powerfully built man swept Mary up in a fierce hug as the child laughed with joy before sobbing under the weight of all she had endured. The rest of the children, two dozen little ones, bowed their heads in shared exhaustion and grief. He solemnly listened as she told her tale, saying nothing till she finished, eyeing John silently the whole while. Though discomfited by the gaze, John stood politely by the clearing entrance, determined to see this through.
The hard eyes of a wolf pinned John's own when Mary's soft voice drew to a close, before abruptly breaking into a smile. "It seems you've done my clan and the town below a great service, rescuing our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. I acknowledge the debt we owe you. You have my gratitude, lad." His gaze hardened. "I hope you understand why I cannot allow you to enter."
John blinked and swallowed, stepping back, hit with an odd bolt of shame.
"I can imagine," he whispered.
"Good," the man said. "Then you unde
rstand it is no rejection of the soul that shines brightly enough to follow Phoebe's footsteps, rescuing children in peril. It is only your shell that I must deny entry to."
John forced a nod. "Good. I hope that means that there's no chance that those Plague Queens or their servants can invade your sanctuary."
The man's eyes flashed. "Not a chance in hell. I will keep these children safe until the plague has passed, and no man or spirit will find this grove lest I will it. My oath given."
John felt a slight shiver in his soul as he exchanged nods with the man, as if he had passed a metaphoric torch of duty and obligation.
Congratulations! You have successfully rescued 25 children from dire peril! Though the parameters of your quest may have altered, as the town below is no doubt being destroyed by Plague Queens at this very moment, you have kept true to the heart of your task, changing the fate and destiny of 25 innocent souls, an echo of their endless potential now your own. Experience earned!
The man gave a curious tilt of his head. "What are your plans now, lad?"
John clenched his fists tight. "I know I'm being a suicidal fool. I know these horrors are way out of my league, and I never asked to be made into what I was. But life doesn't really care about what we want, does it?" He sunk to the ground, exhaustion leaving him numb. "If I were smart, I would turn around and never look back. I'd go off and enjoy all that this world had to offer, and the minute I smelled the plague coming, I'd warn the local healers and jet." He closed his eyes, trembling with the intensity of his emotions, not even sure why he was baring his soul to the strange man gazing so intently at him.
"Every version of me that's come before has sacrificed himself to puppet masters who cared nothing for our hopes, our dreams, the value of our own lives, all of us dying as warped versions of ourselves, alone and forgotten."
John gave an angry shake of his head. "I don't owe the bastards who made me anything but my utter contempt." Then he turned, gazing at Mary's plaintive eyes, and swallowed. "But for her, for her mother who showed me kindness, for her aunt who I had so wanted to save... for them, I'll go back to Goldenwheat, even if that Plague Queen and her drones have already set up her nest.” He took a deep breath. “I’ll go back and do whatever it is I can do before Lilith finally cuts me down.”
Though his heart raced with sudden dread, he meant every word. Maybe it was righteous wrath, maybe just bitter resolve to avenge his fallen clones, to avenge himself, to make that nightmare Lilith know the taste of fear, no matter how steep a price he would pay. Either way, John had every intention of facing down that Plague Queen again, facing whatever landscape of horror that town had become, even if it killed him.
Maybe even hoping it would.
A powerful hand clasped his shoulder.
John gasped, surprised the man would even touch him, knowing what he was.
Mary's grandfather gave John a hard nod, a hot glimmer of something in his eye.
John blinked, feeling something hard and thorny placed into his palm. He hissed, gazing at what looked like an acorn covered in thorns and blood, drops of rain splashing down upon it even now.
No. Those drops were not rain, but his own bitter tears.
"Then let me give you a gift worthy of your fierce resolve."
"An acorn?"
The older man smiled. "If you like. For I sense something beyond a horror’s dark blessing and a Highlord's gifts churning within your soul. Something as worthy as the fierce resolve blazing through you even now. And like the mighty oak, that gift might grow into something tall and proud, providing shelter and shade to all those under your care."
His eyes flashed with bitterness. "But we have no time to teach you the ways my granddaughter refused to embrace so many years ago, eager to be part of a Highlord's pride. Gifts that might have saved her. But there is more than one way to impart a gift, though there is a cost in pain and peril in embracing the wilder path. The darker path."
John swallowed, heart racing. "Then I'll embrace this path, wherever it leads."
The older man's powerful hand clenched John's own. John hissed as he felt the thorny shell of the seed in his hand pierce his flesh. "Then may your blood and tears mingle with the pain of every member of my clan who has suffered at the hands of the horrors infesting our home. May power lost to futility blossom to fruition in the heart and mind of the horror who would dare to destroy his own kind, to become something more than his masters had ever intended."
John gasped as the throbbing pain in his hand grew. His whole limb was suddenly on fire. He could all but smell the flesh sear as burning potency tore through it.
But he refused to let go, even as the children gazing at them gasped and whimpered.
Wild eyes filled with pain gazed into icy blue.
And still, John held on.
Even when he heard the screams of everyone who had fallen within that nightmare cave tear through his heart and soul once more. Sobbing aloud when he sensed Agneta's horrific agony, torn in half by hideous monsters cackling as they destroyed her life, and all the dreams they could have shared.
John's eyes blazed with sudden hate, squeezing the hot core of agony in his fist so tight he and the thorny seed became one. "I'm going to find those horrors. I'm going to cut them down, and I don't give a flying fuck if it kills me!" he roared.
The powerful man who radiated such potency as to seem an avatar of the forest itself solemnly nodded. "I know you will. And perhaps now, you stand a chance of victory."
Congratulations! The Path of Blood is now open to you! All prerequisites superseded by class and Greater Intervention!
Congratulations! The Path of Herbam is now open to you! All prerequisites superseded by Greater Intervention!
You have achieved the Perk: Horror Harvester.
Your mana has gone up 50%. Your base Mana is now 75.
The life force of every Plague Queen (Or any other Horror or Abomination) you face will increase the potency of your Warped Magic! Each Horror defeated will earn you 1 Potency Point you can use to advance along either path of power. Noble acts and quests completed for the Fae will also open additional nodules to you.
You have gained the flaw: Warped Magic! There was a cost to allowing a Faerie Lord to open your Arcane channels. You can no longer follow standard arcane traditions! (Perhaps you never could.) It is only the crucible of combat, feasting upon the power and potency of your enemies, that allows you to develop your Warped Magic! Neither tome nor mortal teacher, no matter how grand, can teach you anything more than theory. It is your fury, your passion, that will unlock your potential.
John gazed at the man before him in awe, for all that he was near swooning with sudden dizziness. "Thank you," he said. "I can feel something blossoming inside me. But, well, I'm still not sure how to cast anything."
The old man's gaze hardened. "You will it, boy. You will it to happen with every fiber of your being. All your cold resolve, all your hot fury, focused on feeling out the arcane flows that will best allow you to triumph over your enemies. Stay true to that, and the magic will stay true to you."
John nodded. "I am grateful for your boon."
The being who John increasingly suspected was far more than a man sighed. "You’re not the first Terran whose path crossed my own. Most were fools unworthy of my time. Some few, however, were far worse than that."
John blinked as a path suddenly opened before his eyes. He didn't know if it was a trick of the light, the way the branches waving in the breeze revealed its secrets simultaneously, but suddenly a fresh path, clear as day, was before John. He took a few tentative steps along it, taking a sharp turn around a thick chestnut tree, his eyes suddenly widening at the glittering display of priceless artifacts, all in a pile before him. A suit of pristine lorica segmentata caught his gaze, along with an exquisite helm, both made of the same exotic bronze-gold alloy.
Other prizes caught his eye as well. Shimmering prismatic cubes, what looked like dwarven-made blasters, mail leggings th
at shone like ice glittering in the sun. And a handful of swords that glowed oddly to his mind's eye. John felt a cold shiver of awe, realizing he wasn't just seeing heat signatures, but an entirely different frequency along the electromana spectrum as well.
He was seeing magic radiation itself.
Congratulations! Magesight Rank 1 Achieved!
John blinked, gazing at the treasures in a daze before spinning around to look back at the guardian of that grove. He thought he saw the man hold out two fingers, eyes hard as a winter gale. But when a shaft of golden sunlight spearing through the gentle woodland gloom caught his eyes and he blinked, the old man was gone, as were the clearing and children when he stumbled back the way he had come.
Which made the encounter all the more surreal, the final message clear.
He was permitted two, and only two, of the artifacts piled in a grand hoard that thankfully had not vanished the moment his back had been turned. Yet he somehow knew that once he left these woods, there would be no trace of any treasure, should he one day return.
He eyed the fortune in priceless artifacts, considering their potential for long moments before finally choosing both the lorica segmentata and helm, almost positive they were made at least partly of Elementium, and perhaps the most durable armor he could find anywhere.
John tried to take off his old helm, only then realizing his head had been bare for quite some time. Perhaps it had been torn off by a scythe-like limb, and he couldn’t help wondering just how close he had come to death that day. He quickly freed himself from his damaged jack of plates, wincing to see how badly his foes had shredded it in their attempts to kill him, before putting on the dwarven armor with a grateful bow in memory of the man who was far more, John thought, than a reclusive grandfather with a knack for the woods.
He gazed down, admiring the sheen of the ancient armor he now wore, supposedly near impervious to any blow, save activated dwarven weapons or, of course, the Psiblades wielded by the most powerful Highlords on Jordia, which Readit rumors declared capable of cutting through reality itself.
Queen Killer Page 22
